


The Best Things in Life Are Free

by Kajikia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Con Artists, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-28
Updated: 2008-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kajikia/pseuds/Kajikia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But you can keep them for the birds and bees. Con men AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Things in Life Are Free

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://team-sga.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://team-sga.livejournal.com/)**team_sga** Team Teyla AU challenge.

"Do it as a favor to me," Nancy said.

John looked up from the folder on the table in front of him. "Why me? Why us?"

"You know the CIA can't operate on US soil."

"Yeah, I understand the government has different branches for that sort of thing."

She leaned forward, eyes wide and earnest. "We have concerns about the reliability of the FBI in this particular case."

John snorted. "So much for inter-agency cooperation, huh?"

She dropped the wide eyes. "You can keep the money. It's going to fund terrorism, John."

John gave her a thin, unamused smile, and they stared at each other for a long moment. The interrogation room felt small and claustrophobic, like it was supposed to.

"If you won't do it for me or your country or the money, do it for your people."

"What—"

"We know about the Atlantis job."

John froze. He made himself breathe, said, "You don't have enough to prosecute."

"No. But I'm sure the people you stole from don't have the same burden of proof."

John looked down at the file again. "Well," he said lightly. "As a favor to you."

"Just think of yourselves as government contractors," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

Before she let him go, she touched his shoulder and said, "Don't run."

"We can't do you much good if we're all dead."

She nodded. "But you divorced me, you know I'm petty and vindictive."

He did know. It was why they'd gotten along so well.

***

_"Hey," McKay said, the first time they met, snapping his fingers and pointing, "like the song."_

_"What?" John said._

_"Like the song: I've got the brains, you've got the looks, let's make lots of money."_

_And that's how it started._

***

John knew if he got Ronon on board, Rodney and Teyla would give in, too.

He and Ronon were playing a slow, meandering game of what might generously be called golf.

John watched Ronon swing his club lazily, one-handed, and said, "So I was thinking we should do a job in Vegas."

Ronon looked at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." John told him the basics; he already had most of a plan in mind, but he needed the others to help him fill in the gaps, hammer out the details.

Ronon was nodding along. Ronon didn't do it for the money—he was in it for the adrenaline rush, and that's what John was selling him. "High risk, high reward."

"You really think we can pull it off?"

"Absolutely," John said, and he wasn't exactly lying. He thought they had a better chance of pulling this off than surviving when the CIA started talking to the Atlantis group.

Ronon looked out over the golf course for a minute, and when he looked back he had a little smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm in."

John made himself grin back at Ronon, bright and cocky like he would if this were any other job.

Ronon glanced over his shoulder again, and when he looked back at John, his grin was a little wicked. "So. You want a blowjob?"

"I want to not be arrested for public indecency while we're on _vacation_ ," John said, and Ronon's smile slipped.

"Whatever," he said, and shrugged it off. "Let's go home."

Teyla and Rodney were napping on the couch when they got back, journal articles and laptops spread out around them. Teyla woke up as soon as they walk into the room, her head in Rodney's lap, eyes open and watching them between one breath and the next.

Rodney woke up less gracefully.

"Yes, yes, laugh it up," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. Then he gave them a suspicious look. "What are you so excited about?"

John let Ronon explain.

"See, I knew it was a mistake to go on vacation," Rodney said, but it's half-hearted.

"Vegas is the big leagues," John said. Rodney didn't do it for the money, either; he did it because he got off on being smarter than everyone else in the room.

Teyla was in it for the money.

She looked over at Rodney, and he looked back at her, and there was a whole unspoken conversation in that glance, before Rodney rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath.

It was assent, and Ronon grinned. He was bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. "Okay, come on, I wanna blow _someone_."

Rodney raised his hand.

"We're on vacation," John said, and everyone looked at him.

"Fine," Rodney said. "We need a direct patch into the casino's security system and landlines, and an umbrella for the cell back-up. Contract it out to Zelenka. _Now_ we're not on vacation."

Ronon dragged Rodney off.

Teyla watched John with a soft, indulgent expression. He managed not to cross his arms in front of his chest.

"It's the rule," he said.

"It is your rule, John," she said, and he looked away.

She sighed. "Tell me what you have planned."

***

_"Her," John said, nudging Rodney._

_She was gorgeous, but he wasn't looking at her face or her breasts. He was watching her hands, quick and deft on the cards, and even though he knew what she was doing, he couldn't see it happen._

_That night was a cakewalk, all overconfident rich boys with more money than talent. Rodney didn't even try to hide the fact that he was counting cards at the blackjack table. But John had an in on a bigger game, and they needed someone to make the cards fall right._

_She turned her head and caught his eye, and he saw the spark of recognition. Birds of a feather._

_"Okay," Rodney said, "okay."_

***

Las Vegas was hot.

"But it is a dry heat," Teyla said solemnly, and John wasn't sure if she was joking or not.

It _was_ a dry heat, brassy and dusty, and John had never really liked deserts.

But he felt it when he walked into the casino, that little curl of adrenaline in his gut. That feeling of _I'm going to take you for everything you've got, and you're not even going to know what hit you._

The Bellerophon Casino had recently won an extremely large sum of money from people who were not displeased to see it go. In four days, they would begin losing that money to a small, select group of people. Or most of it, anyway; the casino would of course keep a small percentage as a fee for their money-laundering services.

Which meant John's team had three days to get the cash out of the vault.

He was maybe bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

***

_They met Ronon when he conned them out of nearly one hundred grand in what boiled down to an elaborate game of three-card monte played with Humvees._

_It wasn't technically their money, but it was the principle of the thing._

_He ended up splitting it with them anyway, because they couldn't get out of the country without each other._

_"No hard feelings," Ronon said with a slow, lazy smile._

_Rodney had opened his mouth to probably tell him exactly how hard his feelings were, but that smile made him reconsider._

_"Hey," John said finally, "can you use an arc-welder?"_

_Ronon's smile was suddenly happy. "On land or underwater?"_

***

John vetoed bringing Zelenka's team in. He didn't want to drag anyone else down with them, in case this went bad.

Rodney bitched about it until John leaned back in his chair and said, "Well, I guess, if you can't handle it by yourself..."

Rodney's chin went up, and Teyla ducked her head to hide a smile. They agreed not to bring Zelenka's team in.

They were holed up in a cheap, grungy hotel just off the Strip. When John went to get take-out, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla had their heads together over the casino blueprints and security schematics. He was starting to let himself believe they could pull this off.

When he got back, the three of them were sitting side by side on the foot of the bed, faces scrupulously blank.

Nancy unfolded herself from the desk chair.

John's stomach rolled over.

"I thought you weren't going to interfere with this job," John said, and he could _feel_ the glare from the rest of his team.

"Even government contractors have some kind of oversight," Nancy said, and she wasn't quite smirking. "But it looks like you've got everything under control, so I'll just be going."

She gave them a little wave on the way out.

John looked at his team. They hadn't moved. They were sitting close enough that they were touching, a solid line from shoulder to hips to knees. It's a comfort thing, a united front, and John had never been on the other side of it before.

"So when were you going to tell us we're working for your government?" Rodney asked flatly.

John grimaced. "Honestly? I was planning on never."

"John—" Teyla started.

"They know about the Atlantis job, and they're going to tell other people about it if we don't cooperate. People who aren't as invested in due process."

"That also seems like something you should have told us."

"I was handling it. I didn't want you to worry—" They snorted in unison. "It's my fault we're on their radar anyway. Because of Nancy."

They were quiet for a long moment, then Rodney waved his hands and stood up. They didn't look particularly appeased, but that solid front was broken, and John felt something in his chest ease.

Rodney paced back and forth a couple of time. "We should use them," he said. "They're not going to mind their own business, we need to manage them."

"We can't trust them," John said reluctantly, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"We can plan around that," Teyla said.

John called Nancy.

***

_He couldn't explain it, not really, what it felt like when a plan fell into place._

_"What happens in Singapore," he muttered against Rodney's mouth._

_"God, shut up," Rodney said, and shoved his hand down John's pants._

_John could hear Ronon and Teyla laughing over the radio._

_What he really meant was,_ What happens on the job, stays on the job. _Because he could write this off as adrenaline and stress relief, as necessary for the team to function when they're working. He couldn't brush it off when the adrenaline wasn't there; he wasn't sure he even wanted to, and that's what scared him._

***

The room was packed up. All the paper shredded and burned, all hard surfaces wiped down, all the laptops and gear stowed by the door. In twenty-four hours, they would either be richer than they'd ever been in their lives, or, well. John was trying not to finish that sentence.

Even with everything hanging over him, he couldn't block the thrill of it out, restless energy running under his skin. _We are going to take you for everything you've got..._

He rubbed the back of his neck and made himself look at Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla. He couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face, and they grinned back, sharp and fierce and delighted.

Teyla was the one who moved first, launching herself into John's lap and kissing him fast and hard. He felt the bed dip when Ronon and Rodney hit the mattress, felt the heat and weight of their bodies on either side of him, and let go of everything else.

_...and you're not even going to know what hit you._

***

_"So, hey," John said. "There's this casino in the Bahamas."_

***

John got up in the middle of the night.

He drank a glass of water in the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror for a long time.

"Hey," Ronon said quietly, and John met his eyes in the mirror.

"Hey."

"You used me to convince the others to do this."

"Yeah," John said, throat tight and scratchy.

"That was a shitty thing to do."

"Yeah."

Ronon put his hand on the back of John's neck and gave him a tiny little shake. "Come back to bed," he said, and padded out.

***

_In the end, when the Atlantis job started to go south, it was the easiest decision he ever made._

_"So long, Rodney," he said, and punched the cop right in the face._

_He has never been sure if they ever really forgave him for that._

***

"They made Teyla," Rodney said.

There was a reason they'd never done a job in Vegas before.

"A misspent youth," Teyla said, deadpan.

Two burly men were escorting her into the back to discuss what the casino had meant when they told her, years ago, that coming back would be hazardous to her health.

John straightened his uniform absently and swiped Rodney's universal key card halfway through the reader. He hovered one hand over the keypad, like he was typing the code in while it worked its magic, and after a really long couple of seconds, the light blinked green.

He stepped into the back hallways of the casino and turned left like he knew where he was going.

"I'm in," Rodney said. "John, two doors down."

Teyla was putting the access panel back on the wall, hiding the spot where she'd spliced the transmitter into the security and computer systems.

The two burly men were unconscious on the floor. John got out the zip-ties and duct tape.

"You good?" he asked.

"Yes," Teyla said, shaking out her shoulders.

"Okay," Rodney said. "I've cleared a path through the crawlspace to the vault elevator."

John gave Teyla a boost up, and tossed the backpack up after her.

Rodney guided them to the elevator shaft. The top of the car was just level with the air vent they were in.

"Going down?" Rodney asked, and John snorted soundlessly.

"Keep your heads down. Security's going to go hot again as the elevator passes."

The ride seemed interminable.

"Switching to video...now," Rodney said. "Let's get this show on the road."

Teyla opened the top hatch on the elevator and swung herself down, and John followed.

Teyla flattened herself up against the side of the elevator, so she was out of view when the doors slid open.

John waved at the security guard at the end of the hall and walked towards him. The guard straightened up when he saw John's uniform, frowning but not really worried.

"Hey," he said, "you're not supposed to—"

"I know," John said, and tasered him.

Teyla was at his side in an instant. John handed her the tablet PC and she pried the faceplate off the vault door's keypad.

"The decryption algorithm's already loaded," Rodney said.

"If you tell me how to hack the vault one more time—" Teyla said pleasantly.

"No, right, I trust you," Rodney said hurriedly.

The cursor disappeared, then finally, finally reappeared on the next command line as the lock thunked open.

"Son of a bitch," John said.

"Don't sound so surprised," Rodney said.

"Ronon, call it in."

"On it."

John and Teyla started pulling bags out, the squat black duffle bags for the decoys, the long flat one the size of a twin mattress for the cash.

They packed everything up fast and efficient, like they handled millions of dollars in cash every day, smooth and crisp under their fingers. The last of it was getting stacked in John's backpack when Ronon came on the radio again.

"Bomb squad's here."

"Say hi to Nancy for me," John grunted, wrestling the cash down the hall to the elevator.

They pried the doors open. The bottom of the elevator was at about waist height, and they fastened the block of money into place with magnets.

"Everything except the vault is going back to live feeds now, so, you know, stay where you are."

John had kind of forgotten how much he hated waiting.

"They're evacuating the casino now," Ronon said.

When the elevator doors opened again, there were half a dozen men dressed in body armor labeled with the words _LVPD Bomb Squad_ inside. The elevator made a second trip, and a large, boxy robot rolled out.

Upstairs, the casino's head of security was watching a video of the bomb squad finding and disassembling an explosive device hidden in one of the vault's lock-boxes by a theoretical disgruntled employee.

In the vault, John and Teyla helped the bomb squad load up the robot with the duffle bags.

"Like _Ocean's Eleven_ ," the squad leader had said when they arranged this.

"Yes," John said seriously. "Exactly like that."

In the middle of it, the squad leader snorted, and a couple of the other guys rolled their eyes.

"What?" John said.

"Nah, nothing, some civilian had a heart attack during the evacuation. They're sending medics now."

"Oh."

"Better than that time when that pregnant woman went into labor," someone called, and someone else yelled something obscene back.

"Here," the squad leader said in the middle of the laughter, and gave John and Teyla body armor and helmets so they matched the rest of the men.

"Video's done in thirty seconds," Rodney said, and John passed the word along.

They sent the robot and two guys up first.

"Coming up," John said in the elevator. "Go."

"We're gone," Ronon said back, and John ignored the bomb squad's looks.

They were in no hurry. They marched out careful and organized.

The medics went flying by them with an empty gurney, a blonde woman and a square-jawed man with a serious, intent faces.

They'd just finished loading the robot into one of the bomb squad trucks when the medics came back. There was a small, mousy-looking man with disheveled hair strapped to the gurney and two bomb squad members with them. You had to be looking pretty close to see that their uniforms didn't quite match the uniforms John and Teyla had been given.

John caught Teyla's eye and they took a step towards the ambulance.

The squad leader stepped in front of them.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding contrite at all. "There's been a change of plans. You guys are going to have to come with us."

"Really?" John said. "Because I was going to say the same thing. Except that you guys are going to have to go on without us."

There was a crowd gathering just beyond the police tape, but in close to the trucks and the ambulance, there was plenty of cover for John to punch the guy in the throat.

He gagged and bent over and John slammed a knee into his face.

"John," Teyla said and grabbed his arm, and they scrambled into the ambulance.

"Go, go, go," John said, and Ronon hit the sirens and peeled out.

Cadman and Lorne were stripping off their paramedic uniforms and Zelenka had been released from the gurney.

John handed over his backpack.

"Nice working with you," he said, and Zelenka looked up from checking the money to give him a quick nod.

"The pleasure is ours."

They left Zelenka's team on a street corner and ditched the ambulance outside a hospital. This time John was on the gurney when they wheeled it out. He had to admit, all that cash was kind of uncomfortable.

The medevac chopper was already in the air by the time John's cell phone rang.

"Motherfucker," Nancy said, and John knew she'd talked to her guys.

"Aw, babe, it was great working with you, too."

The phone clicked over to mute while she talked to her people.

When she came back on the line, he said, "So, hey, I never congratulated you on your move to Homeland Security."

She was silent.

"I mean, you probably didn't want to brag about your upward mobility to your ex, that's really gracious. Or maybe you just didn't want me to know that the Bellerophon really is in your jurisdiction. Why'd you need to contract this job out to a bunch of con-artists?"

"John—"

"Let me tell you my theory. I think the money the Bellerophon was cleaning was government money. I think you guys fucked up and gave the money to the wrong people, and if you'd gone through legit channels to get it back, that would have come out."

"I'm sorry, John."

"Don't be," he said, and she sucked in a breath.

The phone went back to mute, and he knew what she was checking on.

"Motherfucker," she said again when she came back on. "Where is the money?"

He couldn't help it, he laughed. "Just think of us as government contractors."

"If you don't hand it over, I'm going to—"

"Yeah, about that whole blackmail thing. I talked to the Atlantis people, and they've agreed they'd rather have a cut of this job than do the US government's dirty work. I'd tell you not to bother calling them, but it would totally help my credibility if you did, so, you know, feel free."

He could hear her breathing on the other end, and he wished he could see her face.

Then she laughed, and it sounded genuinely amused. "You've fucked my career in the ass with this stunt, Sheppard, but it's almost worth it to be able to tell my bosses I told them so."

John blinked.

"Watch your back," she said. "We may be incompetent, but we are persistent."

She hung up, and he's pretty sure she was still laughing.

***

Bali was hot, but it was a humid, tropical heat, and it smelled like the ocean and green growing things.

John picked his way across the beach, heading for the huge umbrella that Rodney and Ronon were lying under. He handed over the dripping bottles of beer and flopped down between them, squirming around to put his head on Ronon's thigh and hook his ankles over Rodney's calves.

Rodney grunted but didn't push him off. If John turned his head, he could see Teyla snorkeling in the lagoon.

Even after paying off the Atlantis group, they had more money than they knew what to do with, not to mention an excuse to keep their heads down for a while. They could quit all together if they wanted to. It was a strangely comfortable thought, and John let himself doze in the heat while it settled in his mind.

He opened his eyes when the water droplets hit his face, and saw Teyla standing over them, toweling off her hair.

He reached out without really thinking, wrapping his hand around her ankle and rubbing his thumb over the curve of bone, happy just to be touching all of them.

They all went still, and he could feel them looking at him.

Finally, Rodney said carefully, "We're on vacation."

"Yeah," John said, smiling up at Teyla, "but we're con artists—when are we ever not working?"


End file.
